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ChatGPT 5 power consumption could be as much as eight times higher than GPT 4 — research institute estimates medium-sized GPT-5 response can consume up to 40 watt-hours of electricity (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The University of Rhode Island's AI lab estimates that GPT-5 averages just over 18 Wh per query, so putting all of ChatGPT's reported 2.5 billion requests a day through the model could see energy usage as high as 45 GWh.

A daily energy use of 45 GWh is enormous. A typical modern nuclear power plant produces between 1 and 1.6 GW of electricity per reactor per hour, so data centers running OpenAI's GPT-5 at 18 Wh per query could require the power equivalent of two to three nuclear power reactors, an amount that could be enough to power a small country.

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[–] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Usually, companies will make their product say 25% cheaper to produce, then sell it to the public at a 20% discount (while loudly proclaiming to the world about that 20% price drop) and pocket that 5% increase in profits. So if OpenAI is dropping the price by x, it's safe to assume that the efficiency gains work out to x+1.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Thanks! This makes sense, however OpenAI are not yet profitable. It's definitely possible that they're losing less money with the new models, though.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    That "not profitable" label should be taken with a grain of salt. Startups will do all the creative accounting they can in order to maintain that label. After all, don't have to pay taxes on negative profits.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    In the end, it still means their losses are greater than their profits.

    They've still got taxes they need to pay, too - things like payroll taxes, real estate taxes, etc.

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